


I Heard a Rumor (the Miss Jones Syndrome Remix)

by iberiandoctor (jehane)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles in a Wheelchair, Genosha, Identity Reveal, M/M, Remix, Rumors, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-26 01:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12048447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: A ring appears on Professor Charles Xavier's finger. The student body at the University of Utopia embarks on a mission to find its source, and makes an unexpected discovery.X-Men Apocalypse's 1980s-era powered universe in which the name of the school is more than wishful thinking, at least on mutant-friendly Genosha. Charles Xavier is a genetics professor at the University of Utopia; Emma Frost and Tony Stark are his best friends; Charles’s students are extremely nosy and think they know it all. Erik Lehnsherr is… not what you'd expect.





	I Heard a Rumor (the Miss Jones Syndrome Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackyJango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyJango/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Rumours and Ramifications](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9838034) by [JackyJango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyJango/pseuds/JackyJango). 



> Many betathanks to navaan and Prinzenhasserin!

_Monday_

“Hey! Hey, man!”

Alex stifles a groan. It’s too early to start the day with a visit from Sean Cassidy. It’s definitely too early on a Monday, which starts at 6 fucking AM with a mixed martial arts boot-camp class. 

“Hey, man, will you come with me to the Prof’s office? I need to get this reviewed.”

Alex is low on sleep and high on lactic acid, under-carbed and over-caffeinated; surely he can’t be blamed for imagining blasting that eager smile off his classmate’s face? He could say he thought it was an attack from the mainland. Besides, Sean accidentally Banshee-ed the sound system at Utopia’s last football game against the Brotherhood Academy, and the kid is right now about as popular as a fart in an elevator. 

“Sorry, dude, I can’t. I’m real busy. Got things to do.”

Obviously Alex isn’t busy doing anything other than not dying after MMA class, but at least Sean is smart enough not to point this out, correctly figuring that begging’d be a more effective tactic.

“This is really important. I need to submit this today. Just wait outside, you don't even have to come in.” His voice goes one octave higher, and Alex pre-emptively claps his hands over his ears. “Please, man, it just helps having somebody around. Coffee is on me, I promise.”

Alex sighs. Ever since they were assigned to the same Natural Sciences study group this semester, the kid hasn’t let go of Alex’s leg. Also, he sounds wound up enough to repeat the football incident, and Alex wants to make it to the end of term with functioning ear-drums. 

He guesses he could always do with more coffee. Especially if it's free.

  
  


*

  
  


When they reach Xavier's office, the door is locked. Which is weird, because Xavier is usually the first one there. What’s even weirder — the worn brass plate on the door spelling out _'Charles Xavier (Prof.)’_ in black lettering has disappeared. 

Alex says, feeling his stomach lurch: “What the actual fuck, Xavier’s going someplace?”

There’s a snorting sound; one of the janitorial staff has paused beside the door to watch this display of undergraduate drama. She says, “Cool your jets, gentlemen. The Professor’s not in yet. I just took his nameplate in for rework yesterday, it’ll be some time before it’s done up in the fancy way he wants.”

Sean protests, “Why isn’t Prof X in yet? He’s always in early!”

“Not today,” the staff member shrugs, and walks away.

 

*

 

Xavier's class is the last before lunch. After the hour's over and the Prof starts to pack up, Alex sees Sean make his approach, bulky report in hand. This time, the kid has Hank with him as wingman-cum-moral support. The two of them catch up with Xavier near the exit and engage him in animated conversation.

“Carbo-load before you fall over,” Angel says, using one wing to lob a protein bar Alex’s way. Alex is so wiped that he actually has to catch it with two hands. Fuck, this morning’s MMA class must have been even more killer than usual. 

The rest of Alex’s study group slowly gather together, Raven and Armando moving forward to sit beside Angel, so there’s an audience to watch Xavier clap Sean on the back, take Sean’s report, and then wheel himself out of the lecture theatre.

“Weren’t you supposed to try to see Xavier earlier about your paper?” Raven asks Sean, when he and Hank return wearing matching _Mission-Accomplished!_ grins on their faces.

“Yeah, but the Prof wasn't in his office in the morning.”

Hank does a double take. “But Professor Xavier’s always in at 7 am. He's one of the first professors in the building.”

Alex snorts. Hank knows all the teachers’ schedules like the back of his furry blue hand; Alex wouldn’t be surprised if he knows when Xavier’s, like, scheduled to take a leak or something. 

“You'll mail the report once Professor reviews it, right?” Armando asks.

“Totally,” Sean answers. “Prof says he'll finish it by evening and I'll e-mail it by the end of day. And if it gets picked, it’ll be published in the next month's issue of Utopian Science Journal! So, y’know, fingers crossed.” 

Sean proceeds to actually cross his fingers like an idiot, and Angel is the only one kind enough to laugh. 

 

*

 

Class ends at 3 pm, which is when the awesome six-some pile into Hank’s car and head to town for their daily sugar high.

The Grind Stone Café serves the best coffee in town; it’s a neutral venue for students and faculty from both Genosha’s major colleges. Alex and his friends are waved to their usual booth — near the door, under the unsmiling picture of the Genoshan President, Madame Reneau.

Sam Guthrie and Bobby DaCosta from the football team are sitting in the next booth, wearing Utopia black and gold. They’re trading dirty looks over their coffee cups with a couple of big freshmen in the dorky red and purple colors of the Academy in the opposite booth. Alex can feel the rising heat from the Utopia booth — Bobby’s solar power is powering-up — and one of the Brotherhood kids must be geokinetic or TK, because something on their side is making the coffee cups rattle.

“Do you think we should do something?” Hank enquires. Unlike Alex, Hank has the brown-nosing instincts of a teacher’s pet. 

Alex sighs. A year ago, he would have done something to escalate the brewing fight, and then joined in, but he’d promised Xavier: those days were over. Besides, he doesn’t want his favorite café totaled by some meathead pissing match.

“Knock it off, Guthrie. You guys’re in enough trouble as it is, you don’t need to get kicked off the team.”

Sam and Bobby transfer their glares to Alex, but the temperature in the room cools noticeably, and then the Academy kids look like they’re standing down, too.

“Nicely done, cowboy,” says Anne-Irene, from the doorway. She slings her Brotherhood Academy bag onto the table as she squeezes into the booth beside Raven.

The guys make room. They all like Anne-Irene, and maybe Raven more-than-likes her, even though they all give her shit about attending a school that’s a sexist throwback from the 60s, and though Anne-Irene says the trust fund babies who go there are on-average hotter. Which Alex knows to be a total lie — the Academy kids may not use the cheap drug store deodorant, but the expensive kind smells just as bad.

Luna brings their cappuccinos, and Anne-Irene says, “Did you hear the latest from my sexist throwback school? Professor Blieck got hitched over the weekend!”

Alex has never met this Academy professor, but it seems like some of his friends have — Armando rolls his eyes, and Hank's face crumples like crushed paper. 

“Your deputy headmaster got married?” Angel says, like it’s the weirdest thing in a world filled with mutants who have wings or can evolve reactively, or, you know, shoot cosmic energy blasts from their solar plexus.

“Saw a band on his hand,” Anne-Irene says.

“Maybe he's just engaged?” Armando speculates.

“It's a wedding band, not a one-carat diamond. And besides, it's the same thing.”

Alex isn’t sure he should give a fuck about the marital status of this random professor from a school he didn’t even go to. “So what?”

Anne-Irene shrugs. “So, we never thought he’d be the marrying sort? More to the point: we never thought anyone would want to marry him.”

“You make him sound like Frankenstein’s monster! Blieck isn’t so bad,” Hank says.

“No, he’s actually really bad,” Angel says, nodding sagely.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with him?”

Angel and Anne-Irene look at each other, and Ravens looks away. Anne-Irene says: “Nothing,” and Angel says, “Yeah, if by _nothing_ you mean a six-foot giant with paws for hands and hair gross enough to kill flies within a six-mile radius is nothing? They say he can control the world's iron core, but he's too out of shape to use his powers.”

“C’mon, that’s totally sizeist,” Raven says. “Blieck is really smart. They say he never had much formal schooling but was tapped to work on the Geology set-text anyway, and he’s written the world’s leading monograph on the Neogene epoch. Don’t be so shallow.”

“I’m not being shallow! Blieck isn’t just gross, he’s also scary-weird. Remember that joint road trip Utopia and the Academy took to the mainland last term? He almost never talks, and when he does he stares at you through those bug-like glasses, and he has a weird accent like a serial killer? Plus he moves creepy-fast for such a big guy — sneaks up on you, also like a serial killer.” Angel shivers theatrically. “The girls at the Academy think he’s a weirdo, too, right, Annie?”

Anne-Irene shrugs again. “Everyone does. He just… freaks people out.”

Raven says, “Then the Academy’s full of judgey idiots, just like everyone at this table. Seriously, people. I think smart people are hot, and big guys in plaid can be totally hot. Not everyone likes Robert Redford. There’s someone for everyone.”

“There is indeed always someone for everyone.” Armando paused. “No accounting for taste.”

While this witty repartee is going on, Sean's been lost in thought, like his body is here but his head is in the Shi'ar galaxy. “Hey, is Xavier married?” he asks suddenly.

“No,” replies Raven. The others shake their heads — partly confirmation, partly out of whiplash from the sudden change of subject-matter. “Why?”

“Cause I swear I saw a ring on his finger today too.” Sean squints at the ceiling. “And the janitor said that his nameplate has gone for rework.”

The others freeze in place very slowly. 

“Surely it can’t be,” Hank says; they all look at each other as if their minds can’t grasp what may actually be happening.

With impeccable timing, Alex’s stomach grumbles audibly, breaking the silence. “Whatever, I don’t care about whether two old guys are fucking or not. I’m starving, let’s order.”

 

*

 

_Tuesday_

Study group’s in session in one of the classrooms, with Hank is helping Alex with their chemistry assignment, when Kitty breezes in, phasing through the closed door as cool as a cucumber. 

Alex jumps: it always freaks him out how the kid suddenly appears out of thin air. She’s not part of their crew; Xavier assigned her to another group with Warren and Betsey and some of the others. The study groupings seem kind of random — but who knows, maybe Xavier has some kind of system. 

Kitty plops herself into a nearby chair and says, “Hey, it was you guys with the rumor about Prof X getting hitched, right? So I was just talking to Pete Rasputin, and he told me that his uncle told him that Prof X was a first class flirt back when they were in Oxford. Also? He’d use cheesy genetics pick-up lines on his subjects of interest.” 

“Do you think his nerdy pick-up lines would’ve worked on Blieck?” Sean asks, waggling his eyebrows.

“Aha,” Angel says, leaning on her desk, “it’s gotta be the other way round. I bet Blieck ran around the Prof till he said yes.”

“Why would you say that?' Hank asks, suddenly sounding very interested in the topic of discussion.

“Xavier’s miles out of Blieck’s league!”

Kitty giggles. “Prof X and Blieck? They totally rock the same nerd boat. I bet their idea of fun on a Friday night would be playing chess. And their dream date would be the two of them reading Shakespeare to each other.”

Angel snickers: “And that they’d only have hatesex when they don't see eye to eye on Humanitarian policies!” and Raven makes a grossed-out face.

“What's wrong with any of that?” Hank protests, thoroughly offended. 

“Only you would say that,” Alex retorts, and Hank quickly looks away, adjusting his glasses with a nervous gesture. 

“Xavier’s not that bad. He's one of Genosha's most powerful telepaths, and his IQ is literally off the charts. He was only sixteen when he got into Oxford, and he had PhDs in natural science and neurology and genetics by the time he joined the Utopia staff.”

Alex would have assumed that Hank has a massive crush on the Professor if he didn't already know that Hank has a massive crush on Raven. Maybe he should cut the guy some slack. Maybe Hank's only nervous because he's actually as nerdy as Xavier himself and only ever gets to have actual sex when fighting over politics.

“Hey, I agree with Hank,” Armando says. “The Prof isn’t bad looking. He may be short, but he’s fit otherwise, and you can tell he has killer biceps from wheeling that chair around. Besides, his smile overrides everything else!”

“Yah, he has a baby face — blue eyes, red lips, skin as smooth as Snow White’s ass,” Angel smiles wickedly.

Alex snorts. Maybe it’s Angel who has the crush. He can kind of see her point, though it's too bad that those killer biceps are hidden behind ill-fitting slacks and fuzzy sweaters or tweed jackets with elbow patches. Alex is no fashion guru, but even he knows when something looks repellent. Especially if that thing is as repellent as the finger-less mittens the Prof wears in winter.

“Alright, so,” Angel continues, “maybe I get why Blieck would be into the Prof? But I'll never get why the Professor would be into Blieck.”

“Maybe Blieck is Xavier's type,” Armando says slyly.

Angel snorts indignantly. “And we’re back to the scary-weird, anti-social, hairy six-foot giant thing. Yeah, if Xavier is into that, then, sure, Blieck is totally Xavier's type."

“Well, maybe you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with,” Armando says with finality. 

The group goes silent for a minute or two as they mull over these surprisingly meaningful words. Then Hank pitches in quietly: “I still don't get what's wrong with scientific pick-up lines.”

 

*

 

_Thursday_

Alex doesn’t get why their entire study group has to keep Sean company at the library. At least they’re in one of the secluded corners where he can stretch his legs on the bench, resting his back against the wall. His MMA trainer's been even more of a douchebag this morning, and his quads are killing him.

Across the room there is an explosion of fireworks that announces the arrival of Jubilee, one of the kids from Kitty’s study group. "Hey, guys!" she whispers excitedly as she crosses over to their side of the room. "Did you see Prof Xavier’s GOL user profile? He’s updated his relationship status to Married, but he hasn't tagged anyone."

Angel pulls Genosha Online up on the library computer terminal and whistles when she sees it for herself.

"Kitty told me, you guys think he's gotten married to Professor Blieck!" Jubilee continues.

"Seems like it," Angel drawls. “Way too many coincidences to be anything but.”

"Coincidences don’t make it true. Many other things don’t add up." Angel raises her eyebrows in challenge, and Armando continues, "For example, Xavier was out only for a weekend. You can’t get married in a court in Genosha on a weekend."

"Actually, you can," Hank says. "There are fast-track courts that do work on Saturdays. There's even one downtown."

Sean agrees, "I think we're onto something. Remember that Neogene seminar at the end of freshman year? Xavier did seem pretty close to Blieck even then. Heck, the Prof even got him to give us a tour of the Academy's fossil collection. Dr. Monroe said she’d been asking him for access for the Utopia physical and climate science students, and he kept saying no — but we got to go no problem."

"The Neogene seminar?" Alex can't remember going to it, which isn't surprising — he spent more of freshman year getting into fights or into people's pants than actually in class.

"Yeah, the one you blew off because you were too busy blowing Anne-Irene's green-haired classmate." Angel snapped her fingers. "It’s true, Xavier seemed real familiar with the Academy. Their Geology department's at the other end of the campus, but he knew this short cut that took us right there."

"It still doesn't mean a thing. Telepaths are familiar with everywhere," Armando said.

"No, think about it. Remember how Xavier was the one showing us around the exhibits like he lived there, and Blieck trailed behind the Prof's wheelchair like a lost puppy?" Angel glared at each of them. "And at the end of the tour, the Prof squeezed Blieck’s arm and Blieck actually let him touch him! There's a pic of it in the Utopia newsletter."

Realization sinks in on the gang like heavy fog. Clearly at the time everyone thought this incident was insignificant, but in the light of current intel, it seems they might have been completely wrong.

  
  


*

  
  


That night Alex logs on to Xavier’s Genosha Online page. He's not stalking, exactly, he's just curious to see what the fuss in the library was about.

The Professor started ‘Xavier’s Bulletin Board for Troubled Youngsters’ as a safe space for students who didn't want to reach out to him in person and other young mutants still in the world outside Genosha. It contained a minimal amount of Xavier's personal information: place of work, city, and the number to the Cerebro hotline in case any kid in need wanted to meet mind-to-mind. And now: relationship status. 

Alex hadn't followed Xavier's board initially, but one night he came across a picture of a bombshell blonde who had posted a pic of the two of them at some fancy gala ball — the blonde in a slinky silver dress, Xavier in a tuxedo. Several months of hanging around the board told him the woman was a telepath like the Prof, as close to him as a sister, and engaged to someone else.

Alex isn't a stalker, nor does he have a massive crush, but you've got to admire Xavier's dedication to helping kids in need. It's not just because Xavier's the Dean of Students at Utopia. Alex suspects that the Professor's urge to help stems from his own frayed past. The Prof is old enough to have been born before Genosha was founded, to have grown up in the days when mutants were attacked and even killed for being different. Maybe he knows only too well how it feels to be pushed around and desperate to make sense of the world.

Despite everything, Xavier gives this sense of hope; tells you there’s nothing wrong with you, and that it’s okay to be yourself. Maybe he has that effect on Blieck as well. Maybe he sees past the apparent hairy weirdness and plaid and those other things Alex's friends make fun of.

Hell, Alex knows how Xavier is from personal experience. He'd been a wreck that day, dragged in disgrace to the Professor’s office with bloodied knuckles and a broken lip and smelling like a dumpster from going toe to toe with St. John over something he couldn’t even remember. 

Xavier hadn't given him a suspension or even said anything too judging. Instead, he'd wheeled himself over and taken Alex's hand and smiled at Alex like Alex was a precious newborn baby. 

"You remind me of someone," Xavier said. "You have a lot of rage in you, Alex. If you don’t control it, it's going to consume you. Find a way to channel it," and the man wheeled himself back to his desk and pulled pamphlets for various university sports programmes and fitness classes from one of the drawers, and then wheeled back to thrust them into Alex’s hand. 

"Alas, no man is an island. Maybe you could try to reach out to people when it's not just scratching your itch for sex? Friendship is actually pretty cool." 

Xavier paused, tapping a finger to his forehead; for a moment Alex thought the Prof was going to touch him again, or read his mind — though he guessed Xavier could have heard about the sleeping around thing from the Utopia rumor mill. "You know Sean Cassidy, from your natural science class? He's a good kid, but he could use some support. Why don't I assign you to the same study group, and you actually show up for once?"

Alex had agreed — at that point he'd have pretty much agreed to anything to get out of Xavier's office. It was uncanny how the Professor apparently didn't need telepathy to make people do the right thing.

He had a shower and then went online and found a mixed martial arts program on the mainland, coached by this European guy who was ex-military. Alex read up about the Israeli Special Forces Command, which was supposedly even meaner than the elite British SAS; this guy was also willing to run classes on Genosha, which meant he was so badass he wasn't afraid of _homo superior_.

Now half a year in and counting, Alex knows exactly how badass the ex-military trainer is. That first class Alex took — ten minutes in he was afraid he might die, twenty minutes in he was absolutely sure of it, and at the end of class he'd puked on his trainer's running shoes and impeding death itself would be sweet release. 

To his credit, the trainer didn't seem particularly fazed. He'd let Alex lie there for a second, and then picked him up as if he weighed nothing at all and set him back on his feet. Alex looked woozily up and then further up: the guy was built like a tank, sweaty fatigues barely containing pure lean muscle, long hair pulled back tightly from a bearded face and a smile filled with shark-like teeth. His eyes were as blue as arctic ice.

"I will see you Thursday," he said to Alex, and walked off without further comment.

Alex wasn't sure he would survive till then, but he didn't in fact die, and even managed to drag himself to the Thursday class — where he discovered that the tall man could move faster than kids half his age and had reflexes twice as sharp as Alex's. Alex is pretty hard-nosed, so it means something that he's convinced of this: no mutant alive on Genosha can kick this guy's ass, and that includes Peter Rasputin who can turn into a living steel colossus, and Dr. Monroe who can bring lightning down from the sky. 

Maybe Professor Xavier was right. Since Alex started MMA training, he doesn't have it in him to drag himself to bed on most days, let alone punch anyone in the face. And although Sean Cassidy could be a whiny pain in the ass, hanging out with him and the other kids in Alex’s new study group was actually kind of fun. So maybe Xavier was even right about that as well. 

Alex feels a twinge of guilt: Xavier tried to help him, is trying to help all of them — Sean with his shyness, Hank with the chip on his shoulder, everyone else with their other issues — and they’re repaying him by stalking him behind his back and gossiping about his husband, who may or may not be this gross weirdo that nobody but Raven even likes? Something isn’t right with this picture. 

He thinks about it some more, and then shrugs to himself: it’s just a bit of harmless fun. What could possibly go wrong?

 

*

 

 _Monday_

"Guys, you have to listen to this," Warren says, dropping out of the sky on white wings into the parking lot. "Remember the Physics department had a seminar on 'Nuclear energy containment and transformation' by Dr. Moira McTaggart from Edinburgh University?" 

Sean nods vigorously and Warren continues: "Well, I was going to fetch McTaggart from the break room and I heard her talking to Xavier! She was, like, _How’s your legendary Xavier-Frost Xmas bash,_ and he laughed, and did the whole tea thing like he always does, and then he said that they had to tone things down because Frost’s brother moved to England, apparently — and his husband," and here Warren pauses for significance, " _doesn’t like parties_."

Hank is making a face. “You were eavesdropping on the Prof and Dr. McTaggart in the break room? Isn’t that an invasion of their privacy?”

Warren says, “Oh please, it was your group who started this whole marriage rumor! Don't blame me if now everyone totally wants to know who Xavier’s husband really is.”

“Yeah,” Angel says, elbowing Hank. “It’s not stalking, we’re just looking out for our teacher, y’know? The Prof just deserves someone who brings him roses on Valentine’s Day and who is as sweet and charming as him.”

Alex says, slowly, “I agree with Hank, man. Sure, Xavier deserves to be happy, but we don’t need to get all up in his private life, or to cosy up to who he’s married to.”

“Well, it sounded like things’ve gotten pretty cosy, all right,” Warren says, and Alex’s study group huddles closer eagerly. Despite themselves, Hank and Alex huddle too. 

Warren continues: 

“So McTaggart teases him, in her fancy way, all: _Ah! So your husband’s not a fan of glitz and glamour then? Such a shame!_

At that, the Prof laughed harder and said, _Yes, that, and he’s Jewish. So now, we celebrate a low-key amalgamation of Christmas and Hanukkah._

He even invited McTaggart to join them for Christmas this year."

Kitty is the first to break the resounding silence. "Let me take a wild guess as to who's Jewish," she says gleefully. "The Deputy Headmaster of the Brotherhood Academy, Professor Blieck."

 

*

 

 _Friday_

The gang is walking to the cafeteria for lunch when a glowing silver circle materializes in the hallway and Illyana from the other study group steps out of it. "Hey guys, you seen Prof X in class today?" she asks, sheathing her soulsword and adjusting her designer satchel.

"We have him after lunch. Why?" Raven wants to know.

"He... well. At first I thought he might've cut himself shaving, just above his collar." When the gang's eyebrows go up in unison, she says, innocently, "It's really difficult to see at first, even from the front row. It was your group spreading the story about the Prof getting hitched last week, right? Well, it seems his new spouse is getting some action, all right." She winks, and everyone's eyebrows impossibly rise higher than before.

Even though Alex is freshly sore from his Monday MMA session and feeling like he could fall off his chair, he’s with the others in the front of the auditorium, observing Xavier with unusual attention. And yes! Xavier is indeed sporting a purple-red suck mark on his neck that peers out from under his shirt collar.

Everyone tries to keep their faces deadpan and their thoughts to themselves, but the minute class ends, there's a mad dash for the privacy of the quad. 

"Oh my God, I need to wash my eyes out with bleach —"

"— the biggest hickey I've ever seen in my entire life —"

"— if you look closely you can even see the _teeth marks_ —"

"... does Blieck even have teeth?" Sean asks, pulling up short.

Armando says thoughtfully, "It's true we don't see them much. Man never smiles. Plus it's hard to see much of anything with the hair and beard and glasses."

Angel makes a gagging sound. "Ew, I don't get how anyone could get past the hair and beard and glasses to make hickeys in the first place."

"How about my hair and beard and glasses?" Hank wants to know, and before anyone can stop him he flings off his clothes and shifts into his Beast form, which is probably more hairy and definitely more blue than anything any human like Blieck could have mustered.

"That's different," Angel says. "Your hairiness is part of your mutation. Plus, it's hot! Blieck is, Blieck is just gross, there's no excuse for it."

"Like people need an excuse to be different?" Hank's teeth aren't obscured by his fur at all; they shine in the sunlight, slick and sharp. "Like it's prejudiced to think mutation is gross, but it's not to make fun of someone because they're just ugly? Your capacity for self-deception is astounding." 

"It's all about hygiene," Angel says faintly, but she doesn't sound very convincing, even to Alex.

"Hank's right, we should knock it off," says Raven, and puts her hand on the furry blue arm. "Don't be upset, Hank. Angel can't help being shallow."

Armando pats Hank's other arm. "C'mon, she even said you were hot!"

That night Alex dreams of teeth emerging from underneath boulders of hair and nerdy glasses and blue fur and trying to take a bite of his own neck. He wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. He doesn't sleep after that.

 

*

 

 _Friday_

"Well done, man," Armando says, patting Sean on the back. The gang's celebrating at Harry's Hideaway, the dive bar across campus frequented by students and faculty alike.

"What did he do now, Armando? Finally learn to fly?" Jubilee chimes in as she and Kitty join their table.

"No, better! His report ‘Sound of Life’ is going to be published in next month’s issue of Science World," Hank says, a proud smile on his face.

Alex feels kind of proud of the kid, too, though of course he'd rather punch someone than admit it. 

Sean hangs his head shyly. "Aw, it was a joint effort! Hank did half the research, and you all gave moral support when I needed it. And Prof Xavier helped me re-write the first draft, he was awesome."

At that, Jubilee raises her glass. "Speaking of, Xavier was just here with Dr. Monroe and Dr. Stark. They sat over there beside our booth! We heard the Prof say something about ‘Husband’ and, like, it's all around campus about him getting hitched, right?" She trails off, raising her hands in the air as if it's an excuse for eavesdropping. The others at the table lean in towards her, drinks forgotten, as she continues, "Anyway, I heard the Prof saying:

_"My husband doesn't care about being social, Tony. Not everyone's made for the spotlight as you are."_

Stark said, _"It's true that I'm a people person, but your new man truly needs an intervention. I don't believe he didn't want to invite anyone to your wedding!"_

 _"Crowds make him nervous,"_ the Professor said gravely. _"And, I don't know, I quite liked the idea of eloping to avoid wedding guests."_

Stark snorted. _"Charles, you quite like most things. It's a shockingly low bar."_

Xavier patted Stark's hand and said, _"Be nice, my friend. He's had a tough life, he can’t help being protective."_

_"I'm always nice! Okay, that was a lie. I just want you to be happy."_

_"I am happy,"_ Xavier said, gently. _"He makes me happy. He might not be everyone's cup of tea, but he's mine. And it's not because of my shockingly low standards — it's because he takes care of me, and he's never had anyone to care for before he met me."_

At that, Dr. Monroe made an _"awww!"_ sound, and Stark grumbled something I couldn’t hear."

The gang is silent for a beat, and then Angel says, reluctantly, "True love, man. Who woulda thought."

"To true love, and to the 'Sound of Life'!" Raven raises her glass in a toast.

"Hear hear!" They clink their glasses in the air — even Angel, who seems to have finally gotten over being grossed out at the idea of Xavier marrying Professor Blieck.

 

*

 

 _Friday_

Thankfully, the next week passes peacefully, without further incident from the gossip mill. The gang's heading out for lunch when Anne-Irene joins them.

"Fancy seeing you at our humble campus at this early hour! Shouldn't you be having lunch at your country club?" Raven teases her.

"Blieck's cancelled his afternoon labs, so I came to look for you guys. Want to do something fun later?" Anne-Irene asks, sliding her hand through Raven’s arm.

Raven grins and leans in, but they’re interrupted by Kitty phasing through the nearby wall with other kids from her study group. 

" _Guys._ Prof X cancelled his afternoon classes; said he decided to take the long weekend to get away with his family. Do you think Blieck's gonna come pick him up from school?"

Alex should have known that the week-long freedom from the marriage rumors was too good to be true.

"Which way did Xavier go?" Raven asks, at the same time as Sean says, "Where does he usually leave his car?"

Xavier's hand-controlled Jaguar is still in his staff lot. "Did he have his bag with him?' Hank asks, and when Kitty shakes her head, he continues, "Then the Prof would have gone to his office to collect his things. We can catch him if we head there now."

Kitty takes their hands and phases them in a line through walls and hallways to the Professor’s office, all the while praying that he doesn't spot them. They're in luck: Xavier has paused beside his door, travel-sized duffel on his knees, two fingers to his temple in the familiar gesture of his power.

Alex hopes the Professor's too busy telepathically cooing X-rated endearments to his husband to hear the frantic thoughts of his students barely five feet away.

"Damn telepaths. Where's Betsey when you need her?" Angel grumbled. 

"Who needs powers when we have pure detective work?" Hank declares. "Follow that wheelchair!"

Because they're not total amateurs, the two groups wait for the Professor to disappear around the corner before springing into action.

"Kitty, Alex, Angel, you guys stay on Xavier. Everybody else, I know a shorter route to the back gate through the basement. There's a security outpost which overlooks the gate with one-way screens. Come on, Mission Code X is a go!" and Warren grabs everyone else and hustles them down the stairs.

"Mission, really? And you guys actually have a codename?" Alex asks Angel, as she flies the three of them down the corridors and hallways of the campus, following in Xavier's contrails.

"Dude," Angel says, grimly, "any secret that needs discovering is a mission, and any mission, big or small, must have a name. So this case might be closed, but there's nothing more satisfying than seeing the proof of mission completion in actual flesh."

Alex suppresses a sigh. Maybe if the guys finally catch Blieck and the Professor together, people will stop talking about this and he can finally eat and sleep in peace.

 

*

 

Betsey, the telepath from Kitty’s study group, is the first to reach the security out-post. Alex knows because the purple butterfly of her mind-touch reaches them just as they're phasing through the walls to the exterior of the main building. 

_There's nobody at the back gate,_ she sends. _Seems like a false alarm. You guys still with the Professor?_

 _We're on it,_ Angel sends back, and takes them high above the school, into the blue afternoon sky. They see the red brick of the buildings, the spreading green of the trees and rolling grass, the roads... and the glint of sun on the metal of a wheelchair, making good time toward the gate at the rear of the campus grounds. 

As Xavier nears, a black monster truck cruises towards the gate and is waved through. It parks in the lot in front of Xavier's wheelchair. 

_That's Blieck's truck, isn't it?_ Kitty sends, and a tall man gets out from behind the driver's seat. 

The man is big and wearing plaid, like the guys said Blieck always wore, but he's also wearing a racing jacket and very non-nerdy leather trousers. His head is encased in a motorcycle helmet, which is the weirdest thing ever.

He walks to the back of the truck and opens it up, and lifts down a bright red motorcycle with one hand as if it weighs nothing at all. 

Angel says, _It's Blieck! Right, guys? You have a good angle on the gate?_

_Yeah,_ sends Betsey. _It's totally him. Same shirt, though Anne-Irene's never seen that the jacket. And what's up with the motorbike? It's got a little sidecar. Can you get in closer?_

The air team descends, cautiously, and as if on cue, the man walks over to the Professor and removes the motorcycle helmet to reveal his face at last. 

Angel says, "It _is_ Blieck. But, I don't know, I can't see so good from up here, he looks... different. He's not so... uh..." 

The man's face is strangely familiar, which is beyond weird, because Alex has never met Blieck in his life. And after everyone's relentless dissing, the man doesn't look the hideous hairy freak he expected — he's wearing the bug glasses, but his beard is neatly trimmed and his long hair's pulled severely back into a ponytail, the same style as...

"— Oh my God," says Alex. " _Erik fucking Lehnsherr_. No fucking way."

The girls stare. "Who's Erik Lehnsherr?" Kitty says, and Angel hisses, impatiently, "Dude. That man down there with Xavier is Professor Erik Blieck. Someone's cleaned him up and shaved him and put him into decent clothes, but that is the weirdo deputy headmaster of the Brotherhood Academy."

The tall man in leather has pushed his glasses up into his hair, swept Xavier into his arms, and is kissing him, not at all chastely. 

Alex says, faintly, "It's also my asshole trainer, Erik Lehnsherr." There's no mistaking those leather-clad arms that will absolutely hold Xavier in this princess-carry all day.

There's no mistaking those thighs, too, and the chiseled cheekbones and brow that Alex has seen up close and personal during these past months of hell. Alex can tell that underneath those bulky layers of clothing are the massive muscles of an ex-military captain of the Israeli special forces, who can kick the asses of every member of the two study groups combined.

Somehow, without any input from his brain, Alex is saying, "It's my asshole trainer Erik Lensherr, and he's, he's _hot as fuck_."

Angel and Kitty are struck silent, and so are Betsey and the guys watching from the out-post. 

Finally, Angel says, "Your hot-as-fuck asshole trainer's really Professor Erik Blieck? Fuck me sideways, no way."

Below them Xavier breaks the kiss, and squints upwards, shading his eyes with his hand.

 _Students,_ he sends, admonishingly, and Angel sheepishly flies Alex and Kitty to the ground. 

"Sorry, Professor," Alex mutters; he's not sure what he's apologizing for. For invading Xavier's privacy, maybe? For thinking he was married to a weird recluse? All those things. 

To be safe, he figures he should also apologize to his trainer. "I'm sorry we spied on you, too, Mr. Lensherr. Or should I call you Professor Blieck?"

"Both are acceptable," his trainer says, stiff and awkward like everyone says Blieck's supposed to be. "As for your apology, there is no need."

"I believe Erik feels he should be the one to apologize to you, Alex," the Professor says, smiling faintly. He links his hands around Lehnsherr's neck. "I keep telling him that, since he came to Genosha, he shouldn’t need to hide his Lehnsherr identity from his Nazi-hunting days. But it seems ex-military instincts die hard."

Angel sends across a jumble of confused thoughts, something about how come creepy-weird Blieck was living a double life, which Alex can't unpack. It seems Xavier can, though, because he smiles at her and says, gently, "It's because, when Erik was growing up, too-big and too different, and a mutant in post-war Poland, he _was_ Blieck. Sometimes it's easier to hide behind the cruel things you're familiar with, even when there's no longer any need to be afraid."

Xavier looks back up at Lehnsherr. His eyes shine, like he’s found something he lost a long time ago.

"No more hiding," Lehnsherr agrees, smiling down with all his teeth, the shark-like smile Alex knows all too well. He raises his eyebrow, and the Professor's wheelchair lifts off the ground by itself and folds neatly into the flatbed of the truck.

Lehnsherr slides Xavier and his bag into the sidecar of the motorbike, hands him a spare helmet, and then fusses over him, belting him in and unfolding a blanket over his lap. It's so disgustingly adorable it makes Alex want to puke harder than MMA boot-camp. 

Then Lensherr puts on his glasses and his own helmet, and gets onto the bike. The noon sun slides over the undeniably perfect ass that Alex (and everyone else) has never noticed before.

Xavier raises his hand to the students, and then he pauses. "One last thing. The five of you still thinking, _'Hot as fuck'_?" As Alex and the others turn bright red, Xavier continues, calmly, "I don't disagree."

Nobody has any comeback to this, and Xavier and his husband ride serenely away.

The silence both in the parking lot and in the booth is palpable. Kids from two study groups, breathing in and out, the furious churning of their thoughts entirely soundless in Xavier's absence. Alex isn't sure being this thoroughly schooled should feel this weirdly satisfying, but it totally does, and he'd bet he isn't the only one.

 

*

 

 _Monday_

A bleary-eyed Sean tells Alex as they walk towards their class, "Did you see? The nameplate on the Prof’s office door is back. Only now, it says, ‘Charles Xavier Lehnsherr-Blieck’. I don't believe they needed a whole month to spell that!"

Alex laughs. The case is closed, and Lehnsherr is even meaner in class now he's Professor Erik Lehnsherr-Blieck, and all's right with the world. "Me neither, man. Me neither."

**Author's Note:**

>  _This is the "Miss Jones Syndrome", where a dowdy, bespectacled woman switches to contacts, shakes loose her hair, and is told by the unrequited object of her affections, "Why, Miss Jones, you are beautiful."_ \- from tvtropes.org.
> 
> My [trope-embracing meta](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeautifulAllAlong), [here ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SheCleansUpNicely) it [is](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HotLibrarian).
> 
> Located in Salem Center, Westchester County, near Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the [Grind Stone Café](http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Grind_Stone_Caf%C3%A9) was destroyed with a bomb during Kimura and The Facility's attack on X-23 and Mercury in NXM#33, but is alive and well in Genosha in this universe. See also the infamous Harry's Hideaway!


End file.
